Page 34 of Grace's Redemption
Two turns and I’d be on the I-70E heading back to the mess, like my name suggest.
* * *
I didn’t realizehow much I’d miss the freedom of not worrying about anything but myself. I thought about Gracie a lot, but I welcomed it. My little Gracie, knowing the one person in the world who no matter what loved me, made the world seem not so lonely.
I thought about not if, but when we found each other again.
I knew it like I knew how to breathe that Gracie was mine and we’d end up together. She had my heart in her hands and at the moment, she held it there with an open palm. At some point, she would squeeze it with all her might and holding it close to her perfect tits and when that day came, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
As I made it across the countryside averaging eighty miles per hour, I thought about everything except her. I was able to do too much thinking.
I thought mostly about how to kill every single man associated with the Vipers. Every town I passed through I mentally pictured where in the city the Vipers hung out. Some places, I knew, others I could find out with just a phone call, but all that’s all they were... thoughts.
Going after them, was the rage talking, it wasn’t the logical thing to do and I wouldn’t get far. I thought about ending it, too. Being in this world without Mattie, I didn’t want to think about it. It hurt too much.
I thought about my mother.
Not many people knew Greta wasn’t my mother, or if they did know, they didn’t talk about it.
My dad never married my mom. A rival gang shot her and while she didn’t die, she was confined to a wheelchair. My father paid for her care out of guilt, but I lived with him and Greta for as long as I can remember.
I saw my mother a couple of times growing up.
I thought about the last time I saw her.
When I was twelve, my father had picked me up from school early and drove me to a hospital.
My mother had cancer and was dying.
He pushed me into her room, turned around, and left.
I had stood by the door, not moving, not breathing.
She turned to me. Her lips thin and blue, her skin almost translucent.
Tubes and wires snaked from beneath blankets and into the monitors surrounding the hospital bed.
I held my breath.
She smiled.
I exhaled and with that breath the tears fell.
She motioned for me and I ran to her side, and hugged her.
She held me until I calmed down.
I forgave her and she forgave me.
Before she died, my mother made me promise not to join the club. It was an easy ask. I hated it. Everything it stood for. It had my mother living in constant fear, it took her son away from her, and it put her in a wheelchair.
It didn’t seem worth it.
I thought of Greta. I saw all the nights she stayed up worried for him, the times we had to move or get carted off someplace in the middle of the night because we were in danger and Dad wanted us to be safe.
The shit he was into was dangerous. With my mother’s death, all it did was push me further into the club. It was all about hate and revenge and making someone pay for what happened to her. We avenged her death, but it felt empty and hollow.
History repeated itself.
